PGA Tour beefs up Twitter streaming deal

140 hours of live golf from 28 tournaments to be shown for free

The PGA Tour has renewed and expanded its streaming agreement with Twitter, a move that will see the social network show nearly 140 hours of live golf from 28 tournaments for free during the 2018-19 season.

The multi-year agreement includes the first 60 to 90 minutes from the morning hours of all four rounds of the PGA Tour’s OTT subscription window, on a global basis. The previous agreement only included coverage of the first two rounds.

For each tournament streamed on Twitter, a fans vote will determine which one of the two featured groups will be showcased during Friday’s coverage.

Twitter will begin live streaming at the Desert Classic in Palm Springs, California 17-19 January. The four-round coverage on Twitter will begin at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego and conclude in August at the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, where the FedExCup Champion will be crowned.

The live coverage will be available globally on Twitter via @PGATOUR, with promotional support and additional content via @GOLFTV, the PGA TOUR’s recently launched media partnership with Discovery Communications.

“The evolution of our streaming partnership with Twitter over the past three years has led to extraordinary feedback from our fans globally,” said Rick Anderson, chief media officer of the PGA Tour.

“We continue to reach an ever-growing young, diverse and loyal audience allowing us to expand and improve the product with live programming, real time highlights and video-on-demand content.”

Kay Madati, VP and global head of content partnerships at Twitter added: “This year, we will reach and continue to serve highly engaged golf fans every day throughout the PGA Tour season by pairing those conversations with live programming and real-time highlights, all in one place on our platform.”